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It's been two years since the Mideast peace process collapsed, two years in which each side has done terrible things to the other side. We wanted to understand what that has done to people living in Israel and the West Bank, and to see if anyone is feeling hope.

Host Ira Glass, along with This American Life contributors Adam Davidson and Nancy Updike, recently spent a week in Israel and the West Bank to put together this special program of stories about what life is like there these days...with Palestinians stuck indoors for weeks under curfew and many Israelis trying to ignore the conflict. Though that, of course, isn't easy.

Nancy Updike reports that life under curfew in Ramallah can be, among other things, intensely boring. She also tells the story of Sam Bahour, a Palestinian who was born and raised in Ohio, who came back to the West Bank in 1995, when peace seemed possible, to help build the Palestinian state. Now he can't leave his house. (13 minutes) Housing • Politics